UNITED STATES
City of Angels
Kay Ebeling
If only they’d known this in 1955.
When I found “Effect on Victims” in the Franciscans of Santa Barbara Board of Inquiry Report from 1993, it had a big effect on me. I came across it while I was lost in Appalachia in 2011 reading back over files from years of doing CofA Blog. Rereading it contributed to the total process of me finally calming down.
The quote below regards victims who went in front of the Board to describe the impact rapes by Franciscans had on their lives:
“It is important to keep in mind that children develop a sense and understanding of sexuality from authority figures, and that boys came to the seminary at age 13 or 14 years, when they were uniformly young and impressionable.”
For some the sexual abuse “was immediate profound trauma, indelibly imprinted in their consciousness. For others, it was not until later in life that memories returned, sparked by an upsetting occurrence that triggered traumatic flashbacks. Although these episodes were painful, they often provided relief through a new found understanding of the difficulties and struggles in their lives.”
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